{"id":374,"date":"2011-10-05T19:41:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T23:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2024-06-06T23:26:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T03:26:15","slug":"advice-to-entrepreneurs-from-vc-eric-hippeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/05\/advice-to-entrepreneurs-from-vc-eric-hippeau\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice to Entrepreneurs from VC Eric Hippeau"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Another excellent set of guest lecturers in Digital Media Marketing at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/tag\/nyu-stern\/\">NYU Stern<\/a> this week: <a title=\"Eric Hippeau - Wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eric_Hippeau\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eric Hippeau<\/a>,\u00a0a venture capitalist\u00a0famous for investing in Yahoo and the Huffington Post amongst many others, and <a title=\"David Ko - Crunchbase\" href=\"http:\/\/www.crunchbase.com\/person\/david-ko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Ko<\/a>, current head of everything mobile at the gaming giant, <a title=\"Zynga\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zynga.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Zynga<\/a>.\u00a0 The both of them dropped some great nuggets of wisdom on the class with advice to entrepreneurs &#8211; highlights follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i481.photobucket.com\/albums\/rr172\/caldar69\/funny-pictures-bear-secrets.jpg?w=1160\" alt=\"\" title=\"Funny Bear Secret\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Eric on <strong>worst things to do in a pitch<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Have a bad or arrogant attitude.<\/li><li>Give a lengthy, wordy, or winded presentation.<\/li><li>Ignore the importance of the timing of the idea.<\/li><li>Not recognize that probability dictates that other people are working on solving the exact same problem.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"erics-suggestions-for-entrepreneurs\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Eric&#8217;s suggestions for entrepreneurs:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Have skin in the game &#8211; get money from family and friends invested in you and your idea.&nbsp;This shows credibility as you&#8217;re less likely to run away when Mom&#8217;s got a vested interest.<\/li><li>A prototype is necessary, at least whenever possible.<\/li><li>Angel investors are important because of the advice they can provide, not the money they can give you.<\/li><li>The idea: has to be compelling, well-timed, forward-thinking and worth everyone&#8217;s time.<\/li><li>The people: relevant industry experience is important, but not critical.<\/li><li>Balance between idea and people: absolutely necessary.<\/li><li>There must be a techie on the team if the idea is tech-focused.<\/li><li>Understand how the business will be built.<\/li><li>In your pitch, demonstrate&nbsp;knowledge of the marketplace and provide data points that can resonate with the audience.<\/li><li>In your pitch, recognize there is competition and identify them.<\/li><li>Figure out what sort of investors you&#8217;re looking for, and understand your options &#8211; make sure your target investors are a match for you and your idea.<\/li><li>If you end up with 15-20% ownership of your company following funding, you&#8217;re in a good place.<\/li><li>Live the trends; immerse yourself in the trends.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"erics-sample-pitch-decks-contained-slides-that\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Eric&#8217;s sample pitch decks contained slides that:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>In really simply terms, detail the idea &#8211; why now, market details?<\/li><li>How will the idea be executed &#8211; again in very simple descriptions.<\/li><li>How will the idea make money?<\/li><li>Marketing and distribution plans.<\/li><li>Realistic projections of&nbsp;costs and revenues.<\/li><li>Explanation of competitive products, services and firms.<\/li><li>Buzz\/media\/awards are ok, but leave them to the end.<\/li><li>A short appendix (such as user feedback blurbs) is ok.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>David spent much of his time with us answering the many questions we had about his vision for mobile gaming, Zynga&#8217;s strategy, and cultural differences between Yahoo, where he&#8217;d worked for a decade, and Zynga.&nbsp; David recounted the pitch given him by Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga: Google = search, Amazon = shop, Facebook = share, and the goal is to get to Zynga = play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And lastly, David gave us, in my opinion, one critical piece of wisdom that likely goes for granted: every year, ask yourself (regarding your job), are you having fun?&nbsp; Are you learning?&nbsp; Are you making a meaningful impact on the world?&nbsp; If you&#8217;re not, maybe it&#8217;s time for a change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another excellent set of guest lecturers in Digital Media Marketing at NYU Stern this week: Eric Hippeau,\u00a0a venture capitalist\u00a0famous for investing in Yahoo and the Huffington Post amongst many others,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-topical"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/pexels-photo-4050316.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1SwZ6-62","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1737,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/1737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigperler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}